"Now let’s continue. I’ll attack you with a basic combo. A punch to your face and a sweep. You need to deflect the punch and jump over my legs, and hit me back with the same combo. Easy enough, right Helix?"
"I guess."
It’s definitely not going to be easy.
Over the past few hours, Helix had come to learn many things about Cyril, but the foremost was that the man was a huge liar.
Sighing, Helix sheathed his weapons and waited for Cyril to make the move. Cyril had been teaching Helix the House of Reflection, edging into him the basics of what one was supposed to do.
It’s hard. I get the core principles behind the style and how it’s supposed to work, but putting it into practice is nearly impossible.
If there was one downside to the House of Reflection, it was that one had to have very keen senses. After all, to counterattack with a better move, you first needed to know what was wrong with your opponent’s attacks.
And for someone like Cyril, a person perfect in every conceivable way, finding that problem was a tall wall.
The two men locked eyes across the distance. A stiff tension swelled and swallowed the entire training room.
Silence hushed everything, but it didn’t last. It never could, in situations like this.
Then, as if reaching an unspoken agreement simultaneously, both kicked off the ground and launched toward each other.
Naturally, Cyril was faster, reaching Helix before he could even blink. A gust of wind rose behind him, fist whipping out like a latch.
Helix dodged the attack, slipping under his fists as his knees shot upwards. He felt his bones rattle as he came in contact with Cyril’s iron-hard body.
He had been blocked by his arm, while the Blood God’s legs swept under him.
His back hit the ground before he even registered falling. Air and spit burst from his lungs in a single ragged gasp.
He rolled, blades of grass filtering into his mouth, just as Cyril’s heel crashed into the spot where his skull had been a heartbeat ago. Stone cracked beneath the blow, spiderwebbing outward.
Scrambling to his feet, Helix lunged forward in a wild dash. He barely had time to register Cyril’s raised eyebrows before he ate feet...
A kick slammed into his jaws, blood spraying like a gusher. His teeth came loose, tethering at the edge.
A bloody smile illuminated his face, plan finally in motion.
The House of Reflection was poised to counterattack, and finally, Helix would be able to do just that.
Ears ringing, vision doubling, Helix drove forward in a frenzy, dropping to his hands and sweeping his leg at Cyril’s ankles with everything he had left.
Crack—!
The Youngest Abaddon barely kept in his scream.
As if he had kicked a mountain, Helix’s bones had cracked, while Cyril didn’t so much as shift his weight.
Building on his previous momentum, Helix drove his palms into the grass, then kicked upward with both legs aimed straight at Cyril’s face.
The Blood God’s hands shot out and caught him mid-air, fingers wrapping around his ankles like a vice.
Helix twisted.
Using Cyril’s own grip as a foothold, he curled his body, bent his knees, and pushed off the man’s forearm, launching himself upward until he was perched, almost sitting in the crook of Cyril’s arm, as a parrot sat on a friendly admirer.
His fist shot toward Cyril’s jaw.
The man tilted his head, lazy, almost bored, letting the punch whistle past his ear by a hair’s width.
Then he let go.
Helix dropped for half a second, just long enough to register the consequences, before Cyril’s foot buried itself in his stomach.
The world folded in on itself. Breath left him in a single violent burst, and Helix sailed backward, weightless, spinning through empty space with the grass field shrinking beneath him.
Not again...
His back slammed against a faraway pillar of glass, back arching like the fucking gates of Mount Tai. Blood dripped down his forehead in a steady stream, the taste of iron present on his tongue.
Ahh, I hate pain.
Pain was only acceptable if it was given to him by a hot woman, because in that case Helix would become a goddamn masochist.
He lay still for a while, staring at the sky beyond the glass dome, counting his heartbeats to make sure he was still alive.
"Get up, we’re not done yet." Cyril’s voice arrived like a banshee from hell.
Helix’s smile died at the sight of the man. "You...you’re a demon. You know that right?"
"That I know." Cyril stood over him, offering no hand to help. "Now tell me what you did right and what you did wrong."
Helix leaned back against the blood-stained glass. It hurt him to see such a marvel be dirtied by his impure blood.
Hmm, but is it impure? With such a high purity, my blood is practically Abaddon’s, which makes me holy.
Helix psyched himself up in his mind. The glass should be honored to be stained by him...
"Well, I suppose I overextended a lot. Even knowing what was coming, I couldn’t properly defend. I grew arrogant after dodging your fists. But goddamn your hard..."
Cyril raised an eyebrow, looking at Helix with disgust.
"I...didn’t know you swung that way. Stay away from me, creep."
Helix swung his hands around wildly, wincing slightly from the pain.
"I didn’t mean that! Truly, I meant that your leg is hard...no wait, your whole body is hard! Yes, that."
Cyril inched further back, one hand raised as if warding off a plague.
"You’re digging yourself deeper, you know."
"I hate that you’re right!" Helix threw his head back against the pillar, immediately regretting it as pain lanced through his skull. "Ow. Okay. Kindly ignore everything I just said."
"Finally, some wisdom."
Cyril reached into his coat and pulled out a small vial, its contents glowing a faint, coral pink. Without ceremony, he tossed it at Helix’s chest.
Helix fumbled it, nearly dropping it twice before securing it against his ribs with a hiss of pain.
"What’s this, poison? Finally putting me out of my misery?"
"Healing potion. Drink it before I change my mind and let you rot there feeling sorry for yourself."
Helix uncorked it, sniffed once, smiled at the smell, and downed it in a single motion. Warmth spread through his chest almost immediately, knitting bone and muscle back together in slow, uncomfortable pulses. His ribs, which had felt like gravel a moment ago, settled back into something normal.
"...Huh. Okay. That’s actually kind of nice."
"Don’t get comfortable with it. Now grab your sword and get ready; round two starts now."
"You’re a cruel, cruel man, Cyril."
"Call me master, and I’m aware."